On this day: October 26

The Erie Canal opens, the Pony Express closes, Wyatt Earp shoots it out in Tombstone, "Baby Fae" gets a baboon heart, and the Patriot Act is signed into law, all on this day.

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Public domain

1825: The Erie Canal opens. The canal, shown here in this 1840 map, travels about 363 miles from Albany, New York, on the Hudson River to Buffalo, New York, at Lake Erie, and was the first transportation system between the eastern seaboard and the Great Lakes that did not require portage.

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